Artbox
Young children are active learners and this inspirational website offers children stimulating experiences through a range of creative activities. Adults will be amazed at how it encourages sustained concentration! Website link Children can initiate activities that promote learning through choosing to enter the following sections: Make it. A step-by-step guide is provided for creating playthings, such as a fairy's wand and wings! The site encourages children to be as imaginative as possible and independent in their decision-making. Print it Printable sheets are provided for makes, for example, puppets. These activities offer great potential for imaginative follow-up play time. Adults can play an essential role in extending and supporting children's artistic decisions. Play it A choice of games is provided, for example, 'Dressing up box' is a Role Playing game. Here, children can choose who they would like to be! Children are also encouraged to explore colour-mixing and develop their own ideas (encouraging imagination is very important in the early years). Visit it This section provides information regarding relevant exhibitions-a good way to explore and investigate different techniques in art. Discover it Through stories children are introduced to famous artists, paintings and themes. Children can then choose answers to questions which are set to stimulate the child's imagination and to encourage visual exploration. Children can also make up stories from the pictures on show. Picture it Here, children can vote for their favourite children's picture in the gallery that will then be displayed on the homepage. Artists' Tips This section offers ideas on what sort of things from around the home to use in makes and crafts. There are also safety tips, advice for keeping artwork looking nice and for looking after brushes, pens and materials. Occasional features expand children's knowledge about an arty theme, with accompanying information for grown-ups. The site is interactive and altogether satisfying for children, building on the strengths of the SMarteenies programme. Parents/carers can play an active part by supporting their children's creative choices and through entering this creative world themselves by drawing and painting (remember everyone can draw - what better time could there be for exploring this creative world anew)! Features from Artists' Tips: find out about your child's artistic development. Near and Far: discovering perspective Children start to notice perspective and understand the horizon line at about 5 years old. If your child is 3 or 4 years old his or her pictures probably have the classic strip of sky at the top, so that the sky never meets the ground at the horizon. Some 4 year olds may start putting perspective into their pictures when they draw houses, for example showing the sides of the house and not just the front. Often, though, houses are portrayed straight on, with square windows and a front door in the centre. Children also often draw exactly what they know about an object, so they will draw the inside and the outside of a box, house or room, even if they can't see all of it at once. A helpful way for children to understand perspective is through time. A 5 year old may think of the smaller, more far away person in their picture as a younger version of the person they've drawn in the foreground of the picture - the same person a year ago or a few months before. At about 6 years children begin to try out 3-dimensional effects, showing that they naturally understand how perspective works. They are then on their way to drawing detailed realistic drawings. Of course, all children develop at their own pace and your child may discover perspective earlier or later than the ages described above. Whatever age they do, it's just important to encourage them in their drawing and painting from early on so they enjoy expressing themselves creatively. Category:Shows Category:CBeebies Category:CBeebies Topics Category:2002 Category:2003 Category:2004 Category:2005 Category:2006 Category:2007 Category:Web Content